John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman was hanging around the entrance to
the New York apartment complex where the ex-beatle met his death 24 hours
before the fatal gunshot was fired, according to a cleaner that encountered
him.

ROSAURA LORENZO - who befriended Lennon during her days cleaning the
Dakota building apartment he shared with wife YOKO ONO - was dumbfounded when
the identity of the singer's murderer was revealed, because she'd exchanged
words with Chapman
and concluded he was simply an "admiring" fan who possessed absolutely no
threat.

While eyewitnesses have commonly placed Chapman outside the Dakota hours
before he killed Lennon on 8 December 1980, Lorenzo is the first person to come
forward and claim he was actually roaming the vicinity a whole day prior to the
tragedy.

She says, "What I can add to this well-known tale is that this big guy
with glasses had been hanging around the area at least since the day before. He
had got past the outside security control."

On 7 December, upon leaving the Dakota with Lennon's son, SEAN, Lorenzo
encountered Chapman, "He had got past outside security control. We were all
chatting informally for a good while. It was the very place where John would be
assassinated the
following day. It was unimaginable. How could anyone conceive that such a man
would commit such a dreadful atrocity.

"During our conversation, Mark Chapman gave the impression of admiring and
appreciating John as much, if not more, than any of us. He didn't seem an
unbalanced person, even a strange person, to any of us who were there that
day."